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Elections in Venezuela have been fraudulent for decades now.

Fun fact: it was only in 2012, when they took away private ownership and commercial sale of firearms and ammunition under the guise of “security and safety”:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-18288430

Never give up your right to bear arms Americans!

Not sure how firearms would help the average Venezuelan in this case. Maybe they could use them to steal food?

Its a lot harder for your government to become authoritarian when your citizens can shoot back

I think the fact that Venezuelans had guns in 2012 but still had issues show that it's not foolproof.

Plus it seems like folks are willing to vote in the authoritarians on purpose, as long as they are my authoritarians and not your authoritarians.

Not extremely fraudulent, the gov still has a very large base . In 2017 70% of the population supported socialism: https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13251

You seem to have confused several different things: Support for socialism, support for the ruling party, and legitimate elections.

Venezuelan elections have been widely critized as shams and have been largely boycotted by opposition parties in Venezuela.

Venezuela has significant oil wealth but has been ruled by a corrupt and autocratic single party for decades that has squandered and embezzled that wealth.

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